Crossamory (from Latin crux 'cross' and amor 'love') refers to romantic relationship structures, styles, and dynamics that are characterized by reversals and inversions of traditional heteronormative gender roles within heterosexual relationships. Crossamorous role reversal can be a constituent aspect of various relationship stages from dating and courtship to partnership and/or marriage. In its challenges to "normative assumptions [about] intimacy" and relational gender roles, crossamory constitutes a form of relationship diversity. [1]
Traditional gender roles and heteronormative concepts of masculine and feminine have established circumscribed gendered conventions in romantic relationships; men are expected to be dominant, active initiators and leaders who function as pursuers, providers, protectors, and procreative functionaries in relation to women who, historically, have been expected to be passive and pursued during courtship before becoming submissive mates, caretakers, homemakers, and mothers, but within crossamory and crossamorous relationships, these functions and roles are uncoupled from gender and, to a significant degree (bracketing pregnancy in cishet couples), reversed. [2] [3]
The desired preference for and practice of crossamory, the reversal of gendered relational roles within heterosexual relationships, may be considered a fundamental aspect of personal relational identity and/or a defining characteristic of specific relationships and relational dynamics. Some people exchange roles for situational or circumstantial reasons, while other straight identifying individuals consider crossamorous role reversal an intrinsic part of their personal temperament and relational identity and an essential component of their affective, romantic, and/or intimate relationships; these individuals may identify as crossamorous or as crossamorists. [4] [5]
Although not common, some modern cultures do exist wherein reversals of traditional gender roles are the norm, including the Chinese ethnic group called the Mosoua (known for the practice of walking marriages) wherein women head households and in female societies in Costa Rica, North East India, and New Guinea in which women "take on traditionally male gender roles." [6]
Critical discourses related to relationship gender roles and role reversals/inversions of the same within heterosexual relationships can be traced back to such early treatises as "The Morality of Marriage, and Other Essays on the Status and Destiny of Women" by Mona Caird (1897), Margaret Fuller's "Woman in the 19th Century"/"The Great Lawsuit," Maud Churton Braby's "Modern Marriage and How to Bear It" (1908), fiction, including "A Love Story Reversed" by Edward Bellamy, and Tolstoy's turn of the 20th century polemic "The Relations of the Sexes," all of which explored socially prescribed relational gender roles and reflected upon the possibilities and pitfalls of role reversal. Hundreds of years before them, Shakespeare created fictional couples in which traditionally masculine and feminine traits were switched (as in Romeo and Juliet ) or used crossdressing disguise as a device to comment upon gender roles and social expectations for men and women's behavior, both generally and in relation to one another.
In the 21st century, these discourses continue with many generative discussions taking place online. Conversations related to relationship diversity flourished in digital spaces, reflecting real world relational shifts, as relationship egalitarianism and role reversals in various forms become more common amidst cultural changes and material socioeconomic realities and necessities. [7]
By the 2010s, relationship role reversal centered conversations had evolved into communal spaces on digital platforms, notably Tumblr, esteemed at the time as a "vibrant hub for self expression and diverse communities." [8] By its peak in 2014, among the users who had "embraced [Tumblr's] affordances to create community-accepted conventions of identity construction" were a number of women in the relationship role reversal community. [9] Partly to self-identify and also to distinguish themselves and their affective, romantic, and intimate relationships from BDSM/kink related roles and dynamics, in keeping with the "terminological evolution" the platform fostered, began using the terms "crossamorous" and "crossamorist" to describe themselves, both there and in other online spaces. By 2020, "crossamory" had emerged from these conversations as a relational concept and/or identity that could include, should they choose to use the nomenclature, anyone who desired or practiced relationship role reversal in their straight-identified romantic relationships.
Within the context of experiences and expressions of sexual desire or erotic orientation, the term "Crossamory" has sometimes been conflated with and used interchangeably with Cross-sexuality, a related term/concept that might more accurately fall under its umbrella, as it's a form of role reversal within heterosexual relationships, specifically the inversion of insertive and receptive roles during sexual intimacy. In a 2003 Village Voice column, sex educator Tristan Taormino wrote of reversals or inversions of straight sex roles, "the roles of active initiator and penetrator are no longer solely the domain of men nor are the qualities of receptivity and passivity for [women] only." [10]
Beyond the sexual practices and behavior that Taormino notes, cross-sexuality can be considered a sexual identity, recognizing and affirming the existence and experiences of sexually receptive straight men and cishet women with active, giving sex drives or erotic orientations. [11] [12] Given the reversal of gendered relational roles within heterosexual relationships, cross-sexuality may be considered crossamorous. Like crossamory, cross-sexuality is not considered a sexual orientation, but, as forms of cross-sexual intimacy (such as strap-on centered sexual intimacy within a heterosexual relationship) are expressions of straight sexuality that do not comply with heteronormative sex roles and sexual behavior, cross-sexuality may also be situated within the conceptual framework of sexual minorities, a "group whose sexual identity, orientation, or practices differ from the majority of the surrounding society," and/or under the umbrella of Gender, Romantic, Sexual Minorities (GRSM).